Sunday, June 01, 2014

One of my little congressional obsessions is the under-the-radar success of Rep. Alan Grayson, the Democrat who became despised by Republicans in his first term (2009-2011), lost by 20 points, and after returning via a new, safe, seat, became a master of the amendment process. This week, he managed to attach this amendment to a mini-omnibus funding bill:

It's true that Grayson has been extremely effective in using one of the tools of the minority party --- the amendment process --- to actually legislate from the minority for the good of the people. You'd think he'd get some credit for that among Democrats and allegedly liberal commentators in the media. But as is so often the case, those folks are more concerned with what they consider to be his abrasive personality (regardless of the necessity for somebody, somewhere, who is not a Tea Partier to call out the powers that be from time to time.) So the real work he does, work that virtually none of the mannered snobs that are so beloved by the Village ever bother to do, is discounted and derided. But then, that seems to be the operating principle on left now as well as the right: we only respect the work of people we'd like to have a beer with.